The Crimson Warrior - Cathy Dannhauser

A deadly plague completely destroys the human race. The only evidence of human existence is the remaining artifacts, now pawed around by the Earth’s new masters. But then again, cats are curious creatures.

The cats have lived in peace for many years. Now their very existence is threatened by the hounds. Once dogs, these horrible creatures were too violent and ruthless to be accepted by their own kind. As they ravage the Earth, conquering civilization after civilization, the cat clans desperately search for a warrior to help them unite against this formidable force.

This is how it begins:

PROLOGUE

It was the year of the Rat—and the day everything changed. Mankind was at the height of its destructive nature. The air was so polluted you could barely breathe without a mask. Crime was the new law, and governments more corrupt than common street thugs. Mankind’s seed had filled the earth to bursting point; housing was a rarity only those with a six-figure monthly salary could afford, and even then it was the merest rathole of a stinking place with four walls and a low, dripping ceiling. Only one oasis was left in the whole world where wild animals were held in small enclosures, with real trees and bushes—in California. And even this zoo was under threat. The American Government wanted to demolish the zoo. They needed the space for housing developments, but the Animal Rights Activist Group wouldn’t let them, and fought with tooth and nail for the lives of the animals residing there.

The battle in the courtrooms had been raging for more than ten years until the Government finally found the correct pay-off—the zoo would be demolished and the animals destroyed to make way for more housing . . . more space for the criminals to breathe in.

The group of Animal Rights Activists saw their hopes crash and burn. Destroying innocent creatures that were their, the human race’s, responsibility—it marked the end of civilization. The end of taking responsibility for one’s own actions.

Then their leader had a plan. A desperate, final plan: Plague . . .

Luckily, a few of their number had work in the CDC, the Centre of Disease Control—and two of them had the highest clearance obtainable. They engineered the most beautiful, the most deadly, the most virulent plague ever imagined. No expense was spared for the silence of guards, fellow employees and anyone else connected to their scheme.

It was genetically engineered to affect only humans and it had a built-in ‘time delay’, as it were, so it would only work after a certain amount of time to ensure that everyone had been infected. It was a virulent airborne virus—the moment a person breathed it, in that person started coughing, the virus spore thus jumping to the next person to inhale it, and so on. The coughing would worsen for three days. Then the virus would hit—killing instantly. It would turn the insides of a person into mush in twenty seconds. As a fail safe, the virus was engineered to leave the body in a noxious gas, infecting any passers-by.

The virus was filtered into an innocent looking, unmarked, 250ml aerosol can. Every member of the activists received one. Then, each member set off to a specific location across the globe—bribing officials as they went, even to the frozen outskirts where scientist labored to extract clean water from the polar ice. Four members were given the specific task of releasing the animals from the zoo. They hid from the public, deep within the zoo, with the four specifically designed gas masks that would keep them safe from the virus until their duty was done.

On the agreed date, at the exact agreed time, the rest of the members stood in the middle of the most crowded place they could find, where the human population was at its most dense, and depressed the nozzle . . .

One person started to cough, and then another, and then another. Quickly the infection part of the virus was doing its job, and in two days’ time, every single human being was coughing.

Then, at the exact, programmed date, the virus took hold with a suddenness that was shocking. Within half an hour, a million people were dead, by the end of that day, half the population were dead, with the virus still being released by their decaying bodies. By the end of the following day, no human was left alive.

The last four members of the Animal Rights Activists crept out of their hiding places in the zoo. Past decaying, putrefying bodies, they slowly walked, stunned at what they had accomplished.

They released the animals from their cages. With gladdened hearts, they watched as the animals took off. Then they pulled down their masks, lifted the aerosol canisters to their faces, squirted, and inhaled deeply. Their hearts were glad as they started coughing—watching the carnivores feed on the bodies, knowing that their plan had succeeded, and in two days’ time they would join their comrades in death.

Those released animals had a rough time in the beginning. The herbivores had to learn how to smash into grocery stores to get at the fruits and such. Some eventually found the hydroponics laboratories and managed to eke out an existence there.

Time went on—years became centuries, centuries turned into eons.

Nature slowly reclaimed the earth, crumbling buildings, laying cities to waste, bringing back rivers.

Fact became legend, legend became myth. All that the humans had made and achieved went to dust. All that remained were their bones and isolated places where nothing would grow, and animals entering there, sickened and died.

Continents shifted, seasons changed—everything back to its perfect natural rhythm. Continents split into islands—some big, some small. Animals sought out their own species and congregated in the places that housed their food sources. These places became the islands.

Thus came into existence the Animal Isles—Dog Island, Horse Island, Cat Island, and so forth. Stories of the other races were told and retold, and sometimes, with the islands that were nearest to each other, the different races would visit one another.

It was on Dog Island that evil once again sprouted. Two pairs of Rottweilers—in their own eyes the perfect specimens of their species—were banished for acts regarded as unworthy in the dog society. They were driven from their homeland to a small islet just off the coast of Dog Island which was known to be inhabited by some horrible curse. Any animal going there sickened and died in the most horrible of ways. They knew this, for sometimes those malformed bodies washed up back on Dog Island shores.

The banished Rottweilers were banished to the barely livable islet, where catching fish and drinking brackish water were their only means of survival. They feared each day to be their last. But as each day passed they seemed to grow stronger, taller. Bit by bit their bodies were changing in subtle ways. One of the females went to investigate and found strange, yellow metal tubes oozing a noxious green, glowy liquid. On the metal tube a black cross was painted. She remembered some dog telling her stories of those long-gone creatures called hu-mans, and how they had made these liquids for some or other reason. She realized that it was this liquid that had contaminated the islet, and that it was this liquid that was now making them stronger, superior. She smirked: to think that hu-mans would be indirectly responsible for the making of the superior Hound! And so a plan formed in her head.

The banished Rottweilers began breeding, liberally taking in huge amounts of the noxious liquid. The females bore litter upon litter of malformed or dead pups, until at last . . . the perfect litter. Large Hounds with huge shoulder blades and long claws, short thick necks and jaws, sloping backbones ending in two short but powerful hind legs and whip-like tails . . . and red, pupil-less eyes. So it went, until at last the perfect female was born.

Quickly she grew, surpassing her brothers and sisters in size, strength, cunning and aggressiveness. Her shoulder blades jutted past her backbone, pushing her short, thick neck forward. Her jaws were short but powerful, with long incisors made for ripping. Her claws were long, sharp and strong—they dug furrows in the ground wherever she walked. Her back tapered sharply downwards, ending in two hind legs that were shorter than her forelegs, but heavily muscled, thus propelling her along the ground at great speeds. Her long tail whipped behind her, and was used for balance. Her red pupil-less eyes glinted of evil, intelligent malice.

Her name was Schkria.

And Schkria had Plans.

She made allies of the strongest (and dumbest) of the pack, easily intimidating them. One fine day, they made their move. They killed their own parents, and also any other pack member that was not aggressive enough or strong enough, or that seemed too clever. Schkria made sure of that!

Schkria then shaped her army of Hounds. They were the absolute pinnacle of canine perfection. She made her strategies to conquer all of the isles, beginning with the smallest, there multiplying her numbers, then going on to the next in size, and so on until at last, Dog Island would be hers, and every sniveling mutt that had banished her parents would be dead. And on the day her perfect son was weaned and trained, she knew the time had come.

One sunset, her pack stood ready for her command. Standing on the shore in front of her massed army, she faced the darkening ocean, and led her pack to war.

Our story begins here . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Dark clouds gathered, coloring the ocean black. The waves boomed and crashed, announcing the coming storm with glee.

Black shapes bobbed among the waves, claws desperately scrabbled for purchase in the shifting sands of the shallows to pull themselves out of the freezing water. At last they stood on solid ground with salty sea water dripping off their frightening forms.

The creatures resembled dogs—great, hulking black dogs, all sharp angles with huge claws and razor-sharp teeth. Their shoulders were oversized, and their necks tapered down to their broad heads ending in short, evilly fanged muzzles.

Shaking themselves dry, they watched their leader look at the land. She was twice as big as the biggest male. Her cold, cruel eyes were enough to strike fear in their hearts and make them whisper her name in dreadfilled awe: “Schkria!”

It was just before midnight. Schkria kneaded her toes in the soft sand of the shore they’d struggled onto out of the ocean. She and her small pack stood at the bottom of a large, steep sand dune. Over its top she could make out the tops of trees and further onwards, mountains. The sharp wind veered crazily to and fro, bringing with it first the sounds of merrymaking, and then the sound of the ocean.

With a jerk of her head Schkria signaled one of her soldiers to go and investigate the sounds on the other side of the dune.

The soldier nodded, then lowered his body to scurry forward, thrusting his paws elbow-deep into the shifting sand. He quickly and softly scaled the big dune. As he neared its crest, he slowed down, crawling forward inch by stealthy inch until he could just peep over the summit.

Peering down, his red, pupil-less eyes widened in astonishment. The land was rich: tall, dark grass covered the soil; a stream flowed from the mountains through the majestic forest that stretched from the foot of the mountain towards the ocean. A craggy mountain range formed an oval-shaped valley, with only one pass as entrance at the far side of the valley. A palace kind of structure dominated the scenery at the left-hand side, while tilled fields made orderly ranks just beyond it. A few burning torches hung in niches around the entrance. The dancing flames illuminated the black rock that the palace was built of, and threw flickering light over the name that had been deeply engraved in huge script: Inishkairie Stronghold.

The Guard shifted his attention to the activities near at hand.At the foot of the dune behind which he was crouching, a big assembly of cats were dancing and feasting under a myriad of colored lanterns at the front of this Inishkairie Stronghold. A group of youngsters were playing some strange leaping game, bushing their tails and arching their backs in mock viciousness. But the tables! They were groaning with meats and drinks; the scents made his mouth water and he had to exert supreme willpower not to dash down and bury his face in delicious, tender, juicy . . . enough!

Wrenching his attention back to the job at hand, he whiffled his nose from side to side. He slowly turned his head from left to right, thus gathering all the scents he could find—including those of the sentries hidden halfway down the dune.

Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he sidled back downwards towards his waiting Queen. The slithering sand and the noisy wind masked the sound of his retreat from the hidden sentries.

In a shower of sand he came to a halt in front of Schkria, keeping his buttocks close to the ground in servitude. Excitedly he whispered of what he’d seen—the mere memory making him salivate again. He made sure to mention the sentries and the number of Inishkairian cats he’d seen in his report to Schkria. After he’d finished he lay crouched before her with his long tail wagging furiously in the sand and his whole body quivering in excitement.

Schkria imperiously beckoned her lieutenants forward and outlined the battle plan: encircle the cats around the dune’s edge. Kill. She ordered three of them to take some prisoners for questioning.

Silently her pack took off to their appointed positions. Schkria took the Guard’s original path up the dune. At the top of the dune she crouched and watched the unsuspecting cats cavorting while she waited for her pack to settle.

She rolled her shoulders in anticipation and smiled as she thought of her upcoming conquests.

Soon . . .

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Additional Information

Genre	Sci Fi
Author	Cathy Dannhauser
ISBN	978-1-61766-056-6
Format	ePub, Mobi